Qualla: Daugavpils Ghetto

Daugavpils Ghetto: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Artyom Makhlin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The killing place was called the Pogulanka forest. The dying place, the place where they were held until their turn came, was a smaller outpost of the old Russian fortress on the south side of the Daugava River, in the Griva district of what was then called Dvinsk. Before the German army arrived on June 26, 1941, Daugavpils had been one of the great centers of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe - a city of synagogues, Yiddish theaters, Hebrew schools, and a Jewish community that ran the markets, the workshops, and the print shops of southeastern Latvia. Of the roughly 16,000 Jews in the city when the Wehrmacht entered, perhaps 100 survived the occupation. The historian Andrievs Ezergailis estimates that 20,000 Jews from Daugavpils and the surrounding Latgale district were murdered by the end of the war.

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Image: Artyom Makhlin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Daugavpils Ghetto: Refugees on the Highway

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter, Richard, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. When the German army crossed the Soviet border on June 22, 1941, a massive column of refugees began moving northeast along the Kaunas-Daugavpils highway. Jews fleeing the Lithuanian shtetls, Red Army soldiers separated from their units, families with carts and bundles - all headi...

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Image: Peter, Richard | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Daugavpils Ghetto: The Fortress as Prison

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Donath, Herbert, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Authorities concentrated the surviving Jews of Daugavpils into a smaller outpost of the historic Russian fortress, on the south bank of the Daugava in the Griva neighborhood. Calling it a 'ghetto' was almost a euphemism. It was a holding facility, a prison, where people were kept...

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Image: Donath, Herbert | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Daugavpils Ghetto: May 1, 1942

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kurschat, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. On May 1, 1942, the Germans conducted a final 'selection' at the Griva fortress. About 1,500 Jews were still alive. The selection followed the now-established pattern: assemble the people, march them to the Pogulanka forest, shoot them at the pits. One or two survived, most likel...

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Image: Kurschat | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Daugavpils Ghetto: Who Did the Killing

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peteraleks, Public domain. Most of the shootings at Pogulanka were carried out by men of Einsatzkommando 1b alongside Latvian auxiliary police. The Arajs Kommando, a unit of Latvian volunteers under the command of Viktors Arajs, traveled around Latvia conducting massacres in the early months of the German ...

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Image: Peteraleks | Public domain